Genetic analysis of earliness in pepper hybrids (Capsicum Annuum L.)

Abstract

We investigated the combining ability, genetic effects and the mode of inheritance of earliness in diallel crossings of 5 divergent pepper genotypes,. The time period from the initial stage of emergence to the initial stage of flowering was used as the earliness indicator. The combining ability was calculated by applying Griffing (1956) method 2, model 1, and the analysis of genetic variance was carried out using Hayman (1954) and Jinks (1956) method, while regression analysis was done using Mather and Jinks method (1971). We tested the mean values of F1, generation comparing them with parental mean values in order to estimate the overdominance and dominance of an early ripening parent. The variance analysis of combining ability showed highly significant differences in the general combining ability (GCA) and in the specific combining ability (SCA). The analysis of the components of genetic variance suggested that the main part of the variance concerning the earliness belonged to the dominant component and that the dominant alleles prevailed over the recessive ones. On the basis of the mean degree of dominance and the data obtained from regression analysis, it can be said that overdominance was the mode of inheritance of the earliness trait in all crossing combinations.